Brad Pitt has finally spoken out on his divorce from Angelina Jolie.
Following various statements here and there from his lawyers or representatives, the actor himself sat down with GQ Style for its latest issue and delved deeply into a number of personal issues.
For starters, Pitt touched on the accusation that he assaulted 15-year old son Maddox on board a private plane in September.
Just four days after this alleged incident, Jolie filed for divorce.
Pitt was then investigated by Child Services and even the FBI, although no evidence ever turned up that proved this allegation true. No charges were ever pressed.
“I was really on my back and chained to a system when Child Services was called,” Pitt tells GQ Style, adding him and his estranged wife:
“After that, we’ve been able to work together to sort this out. We’re both doing our best. I heard one lawyer say, ‘No one wins in court — it’s just a matter of who gets hurt worse.’
“And it seems to be true, you spend a year just focused on building a case to prove your point and why you’re right and why they’re wrong, and it’s just an investment in vitriolic hatred.”
Throughout the interview, Pitt only mentions Jolie by name on one occasion.
At one point, he suggests to the interviewer that he ought to check out her new movie, First They Killed My Father, saying simply:
“You should see Angie’s film.”
Aside from that reference, Pitt very clearly brings Jolie up often… because how can he not in these circumstances? But not in direct fashion.
Currently residing in what he describes as his “childhood home” in Hollywood Hills with his bulldog, Pitt gets to spend time with his six kids on occasion.
He says he’s intent on keeping the breakup amicable.
“Fortunately my partner in this agrees,” he explains, again mentioning Jolie, but not by name.
“It’s just very, very jarring for the kids, to suddenly have their family ripped apart. If anyone can make sense of it, we have to with great care and delicacy, building everything around that…
“Our focus is that everyone come out stronger and better people – there is no other outcome.
“I see it happen to friends – I see where the one spouse literally can’t tell their own part in it, and it’s still competing with the other in some way and wants to destroy them, and needs vindication by destruction, and just wasting years on that hatred.
“I don’t want to live that way.”
Who would? It sounds terrible.
But some critics out there believe Jolie is responsible for many of the rumors that have spread throughout the Internet, such as Pitt having a drinking problem.
Here, though, Pitt openly acknowledges as much.
“I was boozing too much,” he says. “It’s just become a problem. And I’m really happy it’s been half a year now, which is bittersweet, but I’ve got my feelings in my fingertips again.”
At his best/worst, however?
“I could drink a Russian under the table with his own vodka. I was a professional. I was good.”
Back on September 19, Jolie requested sole physical custody of the ex-couple’s six children: Maddox, 15, Pax, 13, Zahara, 12, Shiloh, 10, and twins Vivienne and Knox, 8.
In January, though, Pitt and Jolie released a joint statement stating that they reached an agreement to handle their divorce in a private forum.
The split has not yet been legally finalized.
“For me this period has really been about looking at my weaknesses and failures and owning my side of the street,” Pitt admits, seemingly going off on a tangent, while also being honest:
“I’m an asshole when it comes to this need for justice. I don’t know where it comes from, this hollow quest for justice for some perceived slight. I can drill on that for days and years. It’s done me no good whatsoever.
“It’s such a silly idea, the idea that the world is fair. And this is coming from a guy who hit the lottery, I’m well aware of that.
“I hit the lottery, and I still would waste my time on those hollow pursuits.”
Pitt says he’s trying to remain out of the spotlight.
But he’s clearly aware that the gossip mill has been churning for months.
And he fears what this will mean for his kids, both now and down the line.
“I worry about it more for my kids, being subjected to it, and their friends getting ideas from it,” he says of the negative attention and chatter.
“And of course it’s not done with any kind of delicacy or insight – it’s done to sell. And so you know the most sensational sells, and that’s what they’ll be subjected to, and that pains me.”
Pitt was photographed for this issue by Ryan McGinley at notable locations such as the Everglades, the White Sands and Carlsbad Caverns.
There will be multiple covers available.
But we assume most readers will focus on what Pitt has to say for a change, not on how he looks.
“Kids are so delicate. They absorb everything. They need to have their hand held and things explained. They need to be listened to. When I get in that busy work mode, I’m not hearing.
“I want to be better at that.
“I grew up with a Father-knows-best/war mentality – the father is all-powerful, super strong – instead of really knowing the man and his own self-doubt and struggles.
“And it’s hit me smack in the face with our divorce: I gotta be more. I gotta be more for them. I have to show them. And I haven’t been great at it.”